The trick of Three Card Monte is one of the oldest gambling scams around and has been active ever since the 19th century to my knowledge and it may be even older in various guises.
The trick often involves slight of hand and this involves an awful lot of practice to execute. This is so much so that some Three Card Monte practitioners have taken this to an extreme with the following little trick. Let us say that you have the queen of spades and two red threes and you have arranged them and then asked the audience to follow the alteration very closely. They end up as follows,
3H 3D QS (face down)
You ask a member of the audience to place a wager on where the queen is and if they accept and pick either of the two red threes then you simply accept the wager and reveal one of the threes and take the money. But if someone selects the queen then you simply say that you will only accept a higher wager……say $20.
If the player accepts then you increase the wager until they either drop out or have not got enough money to place a bet. The bottom line is that the operator simply has no intention of ever paying out a winning bet. This is a very crude version of the three card Monte but this requires no skill at all and is a blatant scam.
Proper three card Monte practitioners have great skill and do not need to stoop to such crude methods. I will try and locate a good Three Card Monte trick on YouTube and then post it for you if I can.
